Trump abandons the Paris Climate Accord, and U.S. role as leader of the free world with it

Our Dear Leader and climate change denier Donald Trump announced his decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord on Thursday, a major step that fulfills a campaign promise while seriously damaging global efforts to curb global warming.

The decision amounts to a rebuttal of the worldwide effort to pressure Trump to remain a part of the agreement, which 195 nations signed onto. Foreign leaders, business executives and Trump’s own daughter lobbied heavily for him to remain a part of the deal, but ultimately lost out to conservatives who claim the plan is bad for the United States.

“In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction under terms that are fair to the United States,” Trump said from the White House Rose Garden.

“We’re getting out. And we will start to renegotiate and we’ll see if there’s a better deal. If we can, great. If we can’t, that’s fine,” he added.

Lengthy process

In triggering the official withdrawal procedures, Trump will spark a lengthy process that won’t conclude until November 2020 — the same month he’s up for reelection, ensuring the issue becomes a major topic of debate in the next presidential contest.

“The United States will cease all implementation of the nonbinding Paris accord,” Trump said, saying it would include ending the implementation of carbon reduction targets set under Obama and ending contributions to the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund, which Trump said was “costing the United States a fortune.”

“As someone who cares deeply about our environment, I cannot in good conscience support a deal which punishes the United States,” he said. “The Paris accord is very unfair at the highest level to the United States.”

The White House began informing members of Congress Thursday afternoon that Trump planned to pull out of the U.S. from the landmark agreement, according to a congressional source.

In talking points delivered to Trump’s allies, the White House characterized the Paris agreement as a job killer that placed undue burdens on American taxpayers.

“The Paris Accord is a BAD deal for Americans, and the President’s action today is keeping his campaign promise to put American workers first,” the talking points read. “The accord was negotiated poorly by the Obama administration and signed out of desperation. It frontloads costs on the American people to the detriment of our economy.”

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were calling lawmakers, including House and Senate leaders, in the hours leading up to the announcement to get input on his climate decision, a Republican source said.

The President campaigned against the climate agreement last year as a candidate, and those close to him said he was insistent upon fulfilling his promises, despite urging from some members of his own administration to remain in the agreement.

* * *

A person familiar with Trump’s thinking said the President was convinced he needed to withdraw from the pact, and there was little chance of talking him out of it.

Opponents of the move say it threatens to isolate the United States in a global effort to curb the warming of the planet, and leave an opening for countries like China to fill the leadership void.

Uncertainty loomed

The uncertainty over Trump’s decision has lent the Paris announcement a reality show-like air, with Thursday’s unveiling a finale to a months-long debate that has split members of the President’s inner circle and led to deep consternation from global allies.

Trump, a former reality star himself, advertised the announcement in a tweet late Wednesday. Earlier in the day, he told reporters he was “hearing from a lot of people both ways.”

Trump had several options for withdrawal, ultimately choosing a step that bridged a divide between remaining in the accord and a drastic, immediate withdrawal from the entire United Nations climate change treaty.

Inside the West Wing, attempts to sway Trump’s thinking also continued apace. Trump’s daughter and senior adviser, Ivanka, has worked to ensure her father heard pro-Paris voices over the last several months, and has continued to press for a decision short of a full withdrawal.

Ivanka Trump and her allies, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Trump’s chief economist Gary Cohn, have pressed Trump to alter the US commitments to the Paris agreement without fully pulling out of the accord.

But anti-Paris voices, led by chief strategist [and shaddow president] Steve Bannon and EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, appeared to win out. In conversations with his advisers, Trump has cited the affect a withdrawal would have on the states where he won by the largest margins, including in the Rust Belt and the western plains.

That’s a reflection of Trump’s “America First” governing policy, which he’s sought to bolster since taking office. Trump was pressured heavily by his foreign counterparts during last week’s G7 meetings in Sicily to remain in the deal, but his advisers say he felt little obligation to concede to that point of view.

And European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker declared Europe was ready to act as a global climate leader in the US absence.

“The vacuum that would be created has to be filled, and Europe has aspirations for a natural leadership in this whole process,” he said in Berlin.

CNN’s Fareed Zakaria says that President Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord is “the single most irresponsible act this presidency has taken” and that the U.S. has resigned as the leader of the free world. Video. That’s not “making America great again” — it is exactly the opposite.

16 responses to “Trump abandons the Paris Climate Accord, and U.S. role as leader of the free world with it”

when the ocean’s warm up enough that the methane gas frozen at the bottom of the oceans melt and bubble to the surface and into the atmosphere it will not be good government liberal elitists or environmentalists who will decide who the excess population to be gotten rid of are going to be. though to save themselves they may try to act like those who will be elected and later appointed to first terminate registered republicans, conservatives and libertarians then those who will be asked are you know or ever been a conservative, libertarian or voted republican. next …

Climate change will send food, energy, and water costs soaring, and savvy consumers should adjust their home budgets accordingly, according to the Brookings Institution, a research think tank in Washington, D.C. Incomes are expected to shrink by 36% by 2100 due to climate change, and millennials will bear the brunt of the economic effects.

Rising temperatures, the erosion of topsoil in farming states, and erratic weather events are expected to drive food costs up between 3% and 84% by 2050. Consider cutting back on resource-intensive food like beef and other animal products as well as buying produce from local farms to keep costs down.

Impending water shortages can affect the costs of natural gas and even sustainable energy in coming years. Consumers should weatherize their home to decrease how much heat leaves in the winter and how much heat comes in during the summer and switch to renewable energy sources like wind, says Stookey. Face these potential financial troubles head on by making a budget that accounts for a percentage rise in costs each year due to climate change — Stookey’s website, offers a sample template for the average family home.

A 21-year-old college student graduating in 2015 is expected to lose $126,000 in lifetime income due to climate change and the generation as a whole is expected to lose $8.8 trillion in lifetime income, a study from environmental advocacy organization NextGen Climate found. This decrease is due to a number of climate change-related economic burdens including stagnant wages and lack of well-paying jobs and potential recession.

You are assuming Climate Change as a result of carbon emissions has happened and will continue. Neither has been close to proven.

The actual temperature change following the first International Panel on Climate Change report ended up at the 5th percentile of their prediction. That’s usually taken as proof that your hypothesis is incorrect.

Since then, they have gone back and changed the historical record of temperatures enabling them to say over and over that current years are the “hottest on record.”

Not since Lysenko have we seen such a distortion of reality in pursuit of a totalitarian mind set.

The truth is the opposite of what we are hearing. The atmosphere is CO2 starved. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will result in forest growth and food crop growth increasing over 20%. It will also result in a huge increase in arable land because greater CO2 concentrations enable crops to growth with much less water.

There is a great book on this, Miracle Molecule: Carbon Dioxide, Gas of Life.

Here are a few facts for you Tom.

1. Ice on the planet is at or close to an all-time record, measured by laser under a grant from the United Nations.

2. The rising seas that you keep hearing about is not rising seas, it is geological modeled sea floor falling.

3. And, as I stated, historical temperature records were altered so that the current temperature can be labeled the “hottest on record”.

Scientific Journals could never be this corrupt right? Actually, since they began publishing in 1665, this is par for the course.

Go read the case of Ignaz Semmelweis if you want to see just how horribly wrong the mass of scientists can be.

Eugenics, started by Darwin’s cousin and based on his theories, ran for 70 years and was the Climate Change of its time.

Eventually, scientists will be embarrassed by words climate change and this whole thing will vanish as well as the lessons to be learned. But, that could be another 50 years.

You know, Tom, I have been around for a good long time. I was in college in the early 1970’s when the whole ecology movement got it’s legs. In all of that almost 50 years I have seen gulible people taken in by the doomsday predictions of the environmental armageddon factions. What has really stood out to me in all those years is that NONE of the predictions have come true and, in many cases, the very opposite of the predictions have taken place! Strangely, that string of failed predictions – some of them spectacular – does not seem to dampen the enthusiasm of subsequent groups and generations of people seeking the end of the world.

Of your list of doom and gloom, ALL of them have been predicted before, and most of them should have already occurred according to the prognosticators of the time.

Plus, doesn’t it even make a little sense that with all these bad things they are predicting, there would be some good things also coming out of it?

India and China each have 5 times the population that USA does.
The pollution levels in China are much higher than in the USA.
Some days are so bad that people have to wear masks or stay indoors. Roughly 2 billion people live in these two countries, but signing a piece of paper and donating money that will be spent by the people that haven’t addressed the problem at the source is going to somehow clean up the earth.
Ridiculous

Let’s say the truth. The White House occupant and his sycophants have left the Paris Climate agreement. Most of the country has not left. For once many big corporations, and cities are ignoring his bunch. And frankly market forces will fight against his ignorance. He is like some mentally ill person, “you all are crazy, I’m the only sane one here!” Trump is the leader of the band in “Animal House,” marching into the alley.

Frances, I consider corporations deciding to comply with the Paris Accords as an excellent way for them to go. If they truly believe they can make a difference, they almost have an obligation to do so. They are doing so with private capital and with the permission of the people who own the resources.

“In light of today’s shameful action by the Trump administration, people who care about their future grandchildren have to essentially hope for this: the rest of the world stays together and continues to press forward with Paris’s emissions targets and indeed ratchets them up, while blue states proceed with their own targets and plans as if we were still on board. These states demonstrate to the rest of the country that compliance need not be particularly costly, making it politically easier.”

If that were to happen what are the chances the Trump Administration would issue an Executive Order to remove that bit of local control? I wouldn’t put it past them.

Once again, Trump has clearly demonstrated to anyone with even minimal intelligence that it was patently absurd to claim that there was no significant difference between himself and Clinton, for all her flaws. Maybe, just maybe, Jill Stein and her voters will finally get it. But I’m not holding my breath.

I don’t know how this ends, y’all. I just know that the resiliency of this nation is being tested to the max. Right now I’m thinking maybe the most hopeful outcome is that Trump has at least one artery that is 98% blocked. We can hope.

Oh, yeah. Much of Trump’s agenda is to decimate the legacy of President Obama.

I’m not aware of the reason for his seething hatred for PBO. We know, of course, that Trump is a white supremacist, but is that all there is to it? I suspect that like all other white supremacists, he believed that a black man could not rightfully be the president and he, of course, set out to do something about it.

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